Websites can vary significantly depending on your industry, business or objective, but there are six pages every website should have. Every website should have a homepage, a services page or product page, about page, contact page and a blog. Read on to find out why these pages are important:
1. Homepage
Your website’s homepage will be the most visited page of your website. This is often where a visitor will land from search engines or if they type in your URL directly. Therefore, your homepage will likely be the first impression a potential client gets of your business.
Users will only stay on this page for a few seconds before moving to the next page (if your website has the right call to action or user flow set up). Or, they may only stay on your home page before exiting back to search results if they can’t easily find the information they need. Users want to be able to navigate your website easily.
Use your website to entice users to stay and explore. Headings should be easy to read and eye-catching. Icons should be subtle, so they don’t compete with the headings. You need a call to action (CTA) such as “see our services”, “book a consultation”, or “sign up to our newsletter” in a primary place on your homepage. The aim of this is to capture visitors’ attention before they exit to Google (or any other search engine!).
Your homepage should give a high-level snapshot of what is included in your website. As you scroll down the page, you should touch on most pages including your products, services, testimonials, partners and contact information. Try to look at your website from the visitor perspective – from navigation bars to images and copy. Present the information in a way that the visitor will understand and be able to follow.
You can use a tool such as Attention Insight to see how your homepage might perform with visitors. Attention Insight is a tool that uses AI to develop a heatmap based on thousands of pieces of user data.
2. Services page or product page
Your services or product page is the second most important page after your homepage. This is where visitors will be able to explore your core market offering – whether it’s a service they can book or a product they can purchase (online or offline).
Use this page to detail your services or list important information about your product. Begin with a summary or your main point of difference. After this, go into some of the more intricate benefits.
Dedicating a page to your services or products allows you to break it down in a clear and easy to digest way. This is also the place to show how you differ from competitors. Ensure to include a synopsis of services or a range of products, bullet points of the service or benefits of the product, videos and product images, and a call to action for more information, where to book or how to buy.
3. About page
Your about page is where you should show the core values of your business – who you are and what you stand for. Visitors will go to your about page when they want to know more about your company – and people are becoming increasingly more conscious of what companies they’re buying from.
Use this page to talk about exactly what you do. What can you offer your clients or customers that no one else can? What do you stand for in the world? What is important to you as a company? These are some of the questions visitors will be searching for on your about page.
Your about page is also a great place to let your personality shine through – whether you’re a fun cheeky brand, or a serious and exclusive brand, or something else entirely. This is where to show it off. Tell a story about the inception of your company – storytelling is one of the best ways to engage customers with your brand. You could even include a video from a director or key person in the company for a more personal touch.
4. Contact page
Your contact page is a very important page for your website – you can sell a visitor a service but if they can’t contact you, all that effort has gone to waste!
Visitors want to know how they can reach you, so make it easy for them on your contact page – they don’t want to search hard for it. Put all the necessary details above the fold and additional information (such as an interactive map) below the fold if necessary.
Don’t miss the opportunity to use a CTA such as “call us now”, “send us an enquiry” or similar. This adds that extra push for customers to complete the action, and makes it easy for them.
5. Blog page
A website that isn’t optimised for SEO is a website that won’t be seen. Search engines reward websites that look active and appear to be giving valuable information. The best and cheapest way to do this is by writing blogs.
Writing blogs on a consistent basis, that are related to your business area, will show Google and other search engines that you’re an authority figure on that topic. If search engines recognise that you’re an authority, they will reward you by showing your website higher in search results, increasing organic reach.
Additionally, a blog page will show visitors that you are an expert in the field. Once you build up a library of website content in your specific field, visitors will be able to read through and understand your products or services better. This will build trust with visitors that your company is the best choice.
These blogs are also great for sharing on social media. Blogs are great for SEO and they’re great for organic content to share with followers. Make sure to write engaging, interesting content that your followers would be interested to click on and read. This will bring more traffic to your website.
6. 404 Page
The ‘Not found’ page, or Error 404 page is the one of the essential website pages on this list, but for a different reason to all the other pages. While the other pages are important from a website content point of view, and contain pages of information that every visitor should be able to find out, the 404 Page is important in a more practical way.
What is the 404 page? The 404 page or ‘Not found’ page is shown to someone when an asset they are looking, like a page or an image, no longer exists in the location the link is taking them to. It is a way to inform a visitor of this.
Essential website pages
Every website should have these six pages we’ve explored above. These pages are critical in communicating your business or product to potential buyers or clients. However, these aren’t the only pages your website should have – there are plenty more pages that will be beneficial to have and will be specific to your industry or even business.
When looking at these pages, it is also important to think about SEO and website hosting – in fact, there’s a link between to these factors as well as we covered in this article.